Howard is, once again, saying all the right things about wanting to be a changed man on and off the floor, doing whatever it takes to be part of a winner and contribute to the Wizards’ playoff hopes. On the court, it’s not hard to see where Howard can help as he has, despite all of his apparent locker room issues, continued to average a double-double every season, no matter what team he’s on.

However, those issues off the court and in the locker room, although details remain scarce, are apparently real because teams don’t just trade players for worse contracts without a reason (and this has now happened two years in a row). In Washington, a locker room that’s had its fair share of tension over the past few years, how he fits in is the most fascinating unknown of this signing.

We’ll have to take a wait and see approach there, while understanding the disaster potential is very much real. On the court, Howard is once again insisting it’s time for him to “evolve” his game to play in the modern NBA, where post-ups are mostly a thing of the past and bigs are asked to spread the floor more and more.